Friday, December 5, 2014

What was a starter project by Google for developing autonomous cars, the concept is now beyond the experimental stages and nearing its implementation.

In the US, these "self-driving” cars were first introduced in Nevada followed by Florida, the second state to allow autonomous cars on state roads, followed up by California.

Now UK is planning to allow driverless cars on public roads from 2015.

So all this seems like a pretty cool implementation of technology which is even publically accessible! But what are the effects of this cause?

‘Effects’ you may ask? Yes, there are effects here too.

Since safety is a prime focus and problem area these cars are aimed to tackle, there is the statistics of low mortality which will slowly be prevalent.

The MakerBot founder Bre Pettis said in his recent interview with Fortune, that

“…the take off of self-driving cars could lead us to more organ shortages than ever, since a major source of organ donations come from car accident victims.

We have this huge problem that we sort of don't talk about, that people die all the time from car accidents, Right now, our best supply of organs comes from car accidents. So, if you need an organ you just wait for somebody to have an accident, and then you get their organ and you're better."

Sounds gross? Yes, but sadly, that is the reality.

As per the current statistics -

“30,000 people die in traffic collisions in the U.S. and 90% of U.S. auto collisions are blamed on human error, and 40% are the result of factors such as alcohol, drugs or fatigue. Therefore robotic cars, such as Google driverless Car, are designed to navigate roads and keep passengers safe.”

“So if there is less car deaths, organ donations would be adversely impacted. Then the 3D printed organ might be a solution. Although this is a dark way of looking at it, Griffith also agrees that Pettis has a point. Pettis pointed out that 3D printing organs will not be the focus of development until the self-driving technology causes the shortages.”

So here is the cause, and the effect, all clearly defined.

And unless the 3D organ printing becomes a viable and an effective solution, sadly the statistics for death by accidents and death due to lack of organ donations would eventually even out.